It's Super Bowl time. . .

Gee, it's Super Bowl weekend. Guess where we will be on Sunday afternoon. In front of the TV, but to tell you the truth, I don't have a preference between Green Bay and the Steelers. Maybe I'll root for the Packers because Ben Rothlisberger is such a jerk. I'll have to think about it when the game starts.

I miss the good old days when the Dolphins gave us a run for our money and actually went to the Super Bowl. Our family had season tickets from the first game the team ever played, back when the only place to go was the old Orange Bowl. The bathrooms were terrible, parking was impossible and the seats were hard wood benches, but the atmosphere was electric and we never missed a game.

My grandson Adam was born in late November of 1978, at the height of the football season. His Mom and Dad attended all the games with us in those days, right up to the Sunday game two days before he was born. The late stage of pregnancy was no reason to miss an important game. No wonder the kid grew up loving sports.

I remember one exciting game when the Dolphins were behind, time was running out, and the offense had suddenly come alive and was moving down the field. A few rows down from where we were seated a man suffered a heart attack and the EMT's were treating him in his seat, obscuring the view of the action on the field for those sitting in the rows behind. I'm ashamed to say that everyone started yelling "Down in front, down in front" to the non-plussed emergency workers. That's the kind of crazy fans we were in those days.

In the Dolphins' glory days, my pr firm was representing the South Florida Auto Show. One of the best attended evening was always "Miami Dolphin Night" when it was my job to hire the most popular players to meet and greet people attending the show. It was also my job to think up crazy promotions, one of which was "Miss Hood Ornament", a sexy blonde that we had photographed with the players holding her extended over the hood of a car. Don't laugh, it got great press coverage and the players loved it.

The players in the photo above will only look familiar to died-in-the-wool Miami fans, but in their day, you would have known them immediately. Left to right, Tim Foley, Manny Fernandez, Jim Kiick and the one-and-only Larry Csonka. That's Miss Auto Show in the middle and a much younger (and thinner) Joan on the right holding the football.

Wow! Did I ever really look like that?????
# # #